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on April 19, 2016
Worked great for old MX7xxx Gateway Laptop with ATI IXP400 Chipset and Crucial CT250MX200SSD3 firmware MU03 (or MU01).
on November 29, 2015
This device is less about gaining a performance boost, and more about using more modern parts to keep legacy hardware alive for reasons, including the fact that new IDE laptop drives are much harder to find these days while mSATA drives are currently plentiful.
This worked with a Samsung 850 EVO 120GB in a PowerBook G3 that I've had since 2000. I was able to clone OSX and 9.2 onto it, and it boots up into either OS. There is a slight performance boost; although I think the IDE port remains the bottleneck, knocking the speed of the SSD down to 10% of its capacity.
This adapter also changes the 5V from the host system to 3.3V for the mSATA drive. I was initially worried about the mSATA pulling too much current, but the upper figure (1.7A for the EVO) is for when it's writing at full speed, something it will never really see when going through IDE.
In my initial testing, it worked fine with a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter and a USB enclosure, so I imagine this could also be used to replace a standard 3.5" IDE drive as well. Just be mindful of the 137GB limit of older hardware (which is why I went with a 120GB).
Only drawback is that when installed, it's upside-down compared to the label-up orientation of most hard drives, so I have to completely remove this adapter if I want to change SSDs instead of just popping them in and out. But I guess it's not really meant for frequent change cycles. And for laptops where the drive is behind a cover held on by a dozen screws, it doesn't matter.
Point is, it works as advertised and I plan on getting more of these.
Update: I should have also mentioned that I chose the Aleratec model because it came equipped with the mounting plate to secure it properly. Even SSDs shouldn't flap around inside a laptop. Also Aleratec isn't kidding when they say "transparent to OS". The hard drive shows up in Apple's profiler as a Samsung 850 EVO.
This worked with a Samsung 850 EVO 120GB in a PowerBook G3 that I've had since 2000. I was able to clone OSX and 9.2 onto it, and it boots up into either OS. There is a slight performance boost; although I think the IDE port remains the bottleneck, knocking the speed of the SSD down to 10% of its capacity.
This adapter also changes the 5V from the host system to 3.3V for the mSATA drive. I was initially worried about the mSATA pulling too much current, but the upper figure (1.7A for the EVO) is for when it's writing at full speed, something it will never really see when going through IDE.
In my initial testing, it worked fine with a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter and a USB enclosure, so I imagine this could also be used to replace a standard 3.5" IDE drive as well. Just be mindful of the 137GB limit of older hardware (which is why I went with a 120GB).
Only drawback is that when installed, it's upside-down compared to the label-up orientation of most hard drives, so I have to completely remove this adapter if I want to change SSDs instead of just popping them in and out. But I guess it's not really meant for frequent change cycles. And for laptops where the drive is behind a cover held on by a dozen screws, it doesn't matter.
Point is, it works as advertised and I plan on getting more of these.
Update: I should have also mentioned that I chose the Aleratec model because it came equipped with the mounting plate to secure it properly. Even SSDs shouldn't flap around inside a laptop. Also Aleratec isn't kidding when they say "transparent to OS". The hard drive shows up in Apple's profiler as a Samsung 850 EVO.
on October 31, 2015
Used to keep an old Pentium laptop running. Works great and was able to install Windows 98SE without issue.
on August 5, 2015
Quality of the product is excellent and happy with it. Took a long time to receive it though, from USA to Australia is the only gripe I have.
on June 22, 2015
Does what it is supposed to do but not noticing any significant improvement in performance over standard IDE drive. Legacy PATA/IDE is likely contributing to performance issues, but I expected at least a modicum of improvement over spindle-based drive and got only slight bump in boot-up time: with old system it took about 1min 38 sec to boot my Linux distro. With this it went down to whopping 1 minute 28 seconds. Hardly worth the expense.
on April 27, 2015
Used this to replace an old Mazak's harddrive, instead of putting a mechanical drive back in.
on April 17, 2015
I had a rather old laptop with a Sempron processor and plain DDR memory that I decided to test the limits of. After upgrading the memory to 2GB I felt I wasn't getting the full benefit of the extra ram due to a hard drive bottleneck from the OEM 4200RPM disk. I had a 90GB mSATA drive laying about after upgrading my father-in-law's Intel NUC to a larger storage capacity. I was really quite surprised to find that this product existed and decided to give it a try...something I'm quite glad I did. Alongside the memory upgrade, this adapter has allowed me to take a 10 year old laptop and bring it into the here and now. Fantastic niche product.
on April 12, 2015
Works with a 13 year old PowerBook G4 Titanium. I decided to use an SSD over another PATA hard drive since 2.5 IDE hard drives are getting scarce. Also, a SSD gives a noticeable improvement in performance for an old computer even though it's limited to slower speeds with no TRIM support in some cases, meaning you have to rely on garbage collection that is found on most SSDs. Since SSD prices continues to fall, it's a worthy replacement for an aging hard drive.
This converter was very easy to install. Take off the bottom cover of the Powerbook, unscrew the screws that holds the hard drive, remove the HD ribbon cable, install the mSATA (I used an ADATA SP310 64 GB) into the converter, transfer the screws from the old HD to the SSD bracket, reattach the HD cable and bottom cover and reinstall the OS. Now, it only takes about 50 seconds to boot into Mac OS X Leopard and 1 minute for Mac OS 9 from chime to desktop. Note that the PowerBook G4s are limited to 66 mbps (on the Titanium models) and 100 mbps for the Aluminum models. Also, the VGA models Powerbook G4s can only use SSDs less than 128 GB.
This converter was very easy to install. Take off the bottom cover of the Powerbook, unscrew the screws that holds the hard drive, remove the HD ribbon cable, install the mSATA (I used an ADATA SP310 64 GB) into the converter, transfer the screws from the old HD to the SSD bracket, reattach the HD cable and bottom cover and reinstall the OS. Now, it only takes about 50 seconds to boot into Mac OS X Leopard and 1 minute for Mac OS 9 from chime to desktop. Note that the PowerBook G4s are limited to 66 mbps (on the Titanium models) and 100 mbps for the Aluminum models. Also, the VGA models Powerbook G4s can only use SSDs less than 128 GB.
